In Britain... The Royal Navy begins a world-wide hunt for the German pocket-battleship Graf Spee. Four battleships, 14 cruisers and 5 aircraft carriers are engaged in the effort.
In Rome... Mussolini reshuffles his cabinet, replacing pro-Nazi members with neutral members. Six ministries and several secretariats change. Starace is no longer Secretary of the Fascist Party. Count Ciano remains Foreign Minister. Grandi, who is sympathetic to the British, remains head of the Department of Justice. Mussolini believes in occasional "shuffling" of government posts, and these changes are not believed to reflect a change in foreign policy.
In Moscow... At a meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, Molotov lectures Britain and France for continuing the war but gives no more than moral support to Germany. He stresses that the Nazi-Soviet agreements provide that the USSR shall be neutral if Germany is at war. Meanwhile, the first of three further sets of discussions between the Soviets and the Finns over the recent Soviet demands for border revisions begins (the final meeting ends November 9). Soviet negotiators demand strategic territory in the Karelian Isthmus, the Hango naval base and the ice-free port of Petsamo in the Arctic in exchange for Soviet territory along the eastern border. No agreement is reached.
In Occupied Poland... The death penalty is ordered for all Poles disobeying German authority, with the accused to be tried in SS courts.
In Rome... Mussolini reshuffles his cabinet, replacing pro-Nazi members with neutral members. Six ministries and several secretariats change. Starace is no longer Secretary of the Fascist Party. Count Ciano remains Foreign Minister. Grandi, who is sympathetic to the British, remains head of the Department of Justice. Mussolini believes in occasional "shuffling" of government posts, and these changes are not believed to reflect a change in foreign policy.
In Moscow... At a meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, Molotov lectures Britain and France for continuing the war but gives no more than moral support to Germany. He stresses that the Nazi-Soviet agreements provide that the USSR shall be neutral if Germany is at war. Meanwhile, the first of three further sets of discussions between the Soviets and the Finns over the recent Soviet demands for border revisions begins (the final meeting ends November 9). Soviet negotiators demand strategic territory in the Karelian Isthmus, the Hango naval base and the ice-free port of Petsamo in the Arctic in exchange for Soviet territory along the eastern border. No agreement is reached.
In Occupied Poland... The death penalty is ordered for all Poles disobeying German authority, with the accused to be tried in SS courts.